recording glock/xylophone

[joninc]

what's yr fave mic / mic placement for this?

today i went to my go to Coles - which used to sound ok in my recollection but it seems to hear so much overtone that the actual notes aren't coming through clearly...

[Scodiddly]

Different musician? There's definitely a tone-from-technique thing with those things.

[joninc]

its me playing - same as usual just having a lot of nasty overtones today...

gotta try something new... and looking for fresh ideas here.

I find bells and vibes can project weird overtones that cloud the melodies being played.. maybe it's a bit of room stuff interacting and how far away the mic is and at what angle etc..

Ribbon mic was unclear today, other times it tames the top end nicely where a condenser might be too top heavy and bright.

[Nick Sevilla]

AKG 414. Did a few records with that on them.

[drumsound]

What's you mallet situation? What's the mic placement and the instrument placement? What is the part like.

Bells in particular are pretty rough if you don't have good dampening technique. You need to stop the beating notes with you finger. We used to practice scales and arpeggios dampening the previous note as we attacked the next. On actual parts and runs you had to work out which notes were going to cause clashes and make sure you stopped them.

In an orchestra there's so much distance between the instrument and listener, and the space is so big that its only the player you REALLY feels the effect, but it can even mess with the ensemble is something is ringing out.

In the Studio its much worse. Raise the mic, angle it so that the sound is off axis to the attack isn't crunching, and have some different mallets around.

Xylophone is quite different. They don't have nearly the ring or crazy-ass overtones. The is a super fast transient, though, so the mic and the chain need to be about to deal with it.

Vibes are probably the most mic friendly mallet instrument. Player sustain and dampening still comes heavily into play. M/S on vibes about a foot out, higher than the instrument and at about a 45 degree angle. But just a spaced pair works great. There are a bunch of placement things that work.

[losthighway]

For a smaller glock, I've had luck with small diaphragm condensers in xy several feet above using slightly softer mallets.

Still I've seen all the challenges here: fundamental not loud enough, really spiky transients. Fast compression and some eq help too.

I recently did some glockenspiel with a single tube condenser that came across nicely. It helps to play medium soft and hit as consistently as possible.

[cgarges]

Everything Tony said!

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC